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404media should be fucking ashamed for continuing to paint a false narrative that these "rare books" should be fetishized and people should care deeply about what happens to them.

This isn't even good investigative journalism; their work here has the quality of a fucking tabloid.

These writers hate big tech *so much* they're betting that their readership can be fomented and unified against these companies over a topic that the readers will never understand.

"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them"

๐Ÿ™‰ BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIINGGGGGGG!!!!!

"The vast majority of books produced -- rare or not -- end up being shredded because they're absolutely useless and there is zero demand for them -- but now AI companies are buying them and scanning them before they get destroyed!"

:allears: HOLY SHIT TELL ME MORE





It's perfectly reasonable to hate what big tech has become. But if you're going to risk your reputation and journalism credentials to criticize them, at least stand on solid ground instead of relying on flimsy accusations that are so easily repelled when the whole scope of facts is presented.

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@Ree "every book that nobody cares about should be public domain" -- I get the sentiment, I just don't know how we as a society benefit from this. We're bikeshedding this topic to death.

It's one of those "pat yourself on the back and feel good about it" things. We struggle with this all the time especially in America. We love to agree with ideas and ideals that seems like we're helping society or solving a problem when really it does nothing at all.

It's probably a key signal that we're living with so much despair that we're ready to latch on to anything that feels positive, even if the effects are essentially homeopathic
I've even heard some stupid accusations of why they are destroying copies is for tax reasons.

Shieeet, I wish I knew that destroying my books back in college would be considered a tax deduction. ๐Ÿ˜

I also love how none of these people can tell me at least one titles of these "rare" books.
it's not like we can expect 404media to waste a bunch of time and energy investigating Big Tech's book eating machines and come back and write "actually... it's totally fine, this doesn't materially impact us in any way and they're probably wasting their money doing it so we can chill out, it's better than stealing ebooks right?" because their subscribers would overreact and start a boycott campaign against 404media for not fighting against AI. And if they didn't report on it at all, they'd be lambasted for that too.

It takes real courage to stare your paying customers down and tell them you've done your homework on this topic and they're wrong
@matrix not just shares; actively reinforces

They went from being an interesting independent go-gettem new wave investigative journalism outlet to "print anything that gets us subscribers" in record time

I'm not sure this is a solvable problem. People just don't want to pay for news that they fundamentally disagree with. That's why this kind of work needs to be supported by other news that they'll pay for.
https://youtu.be/FwnTmkDH1Ns

This guy is such an insufferable prick.
He had an L when he accused a republished version of a game of thrones book to using "AI" art. Spoiler alert turns out he was wrong and the art was just simply bad.

And now "this is the new book burning".
You can't even win with this retard. Even if they are destroying ww2 era books or memoirs of JK Rowling, these people will point and say "They are feeding AI biggoted books. THIS HAS TO STOP!"